With her book Denying the Holocaust, Deborah Lipstadt tried to show the flawed methods and extremist motives of “Holocaust deniers,” who, so the book’s description claims, have “no more credibility than the assertion that the earth is flat.”

Both this documentary and the book demonstrate that Dr. Lipstadt clearly has neither understood what the principles and methods of science and scholarship are, nor has she any clue about the historical topics she is writing about. She misquotes, mistranslates, misrepresents, misinterprets, and makes a plethora of wild claims without backing them up with anything. Among other things, she utterly fails to use generally recognized standards of evidence. Given the way she handles documents and data, it is clear that she has no interest in scholarship or reason. In fact, truth has been the antithesis of her enterprise.

Rather than dealing thoroughly with factual arguments, Lipstadt’s book is full of ad hominem attacks on her opponents. It is an exercise in anti-intellectual pseudo-scientific arguments, an exhibition of ideological radicalism that rejects anything which contradicts its preset conclusions.

Since she admits herself that her opponents’ motives are irrelevant, as an inescapable consequence, so is her book.

The transcript of this presentation, enriched by source references, links to more information and a subtitle file for downloading, can be found here.

Copyright Notice: This movie has been released to the public domain for educational purposes only. It may be copied and distributed free of charge only. No commercial use is permitted. If copied and distributed, no changes to the movie are permitted without the prior written consent of the author/director of the movie.

The transcript of this presentation, enriched by source references, links to more information and a subtitle file for downloading, can be found here.